Gatekeepers of the Lincoln assassination

Meet Edward Steers, Jr., one of the leading propagandists who wants to keep a lid on the Lincoln assassination by looking in all the wrong places. Steers is not an independent researcher and his subjectivity is splashed all over the pages of his rambling book, Blood on the Moon.

Steers notes that only three books on the assassination have been written by academics in the field, while all the others are written by armchair historians, many of whom portray “Lincoln’s secretary of War, Edwin Stanton….as orchestrating the murder of his president.” According to him, “Such a theory is based on flawed and even fabricated evidence, all designed to titillate the reader and create a type of shock history that, although financially rewarding to the author, misleads.” Steers does not use evidence to support these conclusions, and refers to any attempt to investigate the Radicals as “silly.”

Steers has a close relationship with Roger Norton who runs the largest online Lincoln forum. He seems closely associated with as the Surratt society as well, the volunteer organization that serves as a gatekeeper on assassination research. This crew doesn’t seem interested in breaking the case open, and lead debate of who was responsible in circles going nowhere. Steers’ books are filled with the most amazing prejudices and flights of fancy and he portrays any attempt to analyze the role of the Radical Republican cabal (who hated Lincoln with a purple passion) as meaningless. This is transparent propaganda at work.

I was absolutely floored by the hostile reception my book on the assassination received from the director of the Surratt society and of course Norton himself made no secret of his disgust for my theories and research.

What this crew does is run people around in circles debating the role of Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, both of whom were undoubtedly part of the Confederate underground in Maryland and assisted that underground whenever they could. But by focusing on these two characters (while also claiming that Jefferson Davis was also involved in the plot), they have tried to keep a lid on any real investigation. I don’t understand their motives, but I can assure you they’re not the least bit interested in investigating the cabal that really killed Lincoln, and will ridicule any attempts to do so.

In fact, the military tribunal that hanged Surratt and put Mudd in jail was not a legitimate trial, but a sham stuffed with fakes, forgeries and perjuries. It’s a fluke this was even discovered, and would not have been revealed if not for one honest Congressman named Andy Rogers, who was able to cross examine the key witnesses who testified at the tribunal at a later Congressional investigation, and many of them folded and confessed to receiving coaching and considerable money for their testimony from Sanford Conover. Why is this Congressional investigation virtually unknown by most Americans, who assume the original trial was legitimate?

When you have a trial so filled with manipulations and deceits, the first person that should be investigated is the one orchestrating the trial, because they are most likely involved. Yet, Steers takes the approach Stanton is above all reproach, and this is the attitude of most on Norton’s forum it seems, since so many immediately attacked me without bothering to read my book or consider my evidence.

We’re reaching a tipping point with this case and with the 150th anniversary almost upon us, I’m hoping the anniversary can help open some minds. Just like the JFK assassination was changed forever when the Zapruder film was finally shown on national television (convincing millions in an instant that Kennedy was shot from multiple directions), the release of The Conspirator by Robert Redford a few years ago opened my eyes to the hoodwinks employed by the tribunal to convict Jefferson Davis, Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd.

But after that Congressional investigation revealed the truth, many American finally realized Surratt and Mudd had been railroaded by a kangaroo court, and even though they were Southern sympathizers, they had no hand in Lincoln’s assassination, which is why Andrew Johnson had Mudd released from prison, while admitting regrets over the hanging of Surratt.

Let freedom ring and the truth be told from every mountain top. Lincoln’s assassination was an inside job.